Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, has presided over rising electricity prices, falling energy reliability and an emissions reduction program that is flatlining, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has decided to reward the minister for energy with the full-time frequent flyer role of being a part-time Australian energy minister while he takes up the role of 'His Excellency the PON', 'His Excellency the President of Negotiations', for the COP31 conference that will happen next year in November. This is my bold prediction: electricity prices for Anthony Albanese will be like the carbon tax for Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Remember, it was Chris Bowen, the member for McMahon, who robbed Bill Shorten of his election victory in 2019. And now it is Chris Bowen, the member for McMahon, who is going to rob Anthony Albanese of his third parliamentary term at the next election. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese instead thinks that he should reward the minister for energy.

There are some questions for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and some questions for Chris Bowen, the minister for energy. As he assumes his position as the PON, the President of Negotiations, for the COP31 conference, these are the questions he needs to answer. Will the minister for energy attend every parliamentary sitting day in 2026 up to the point of the COP31 conference, which happens in November? That's the first question: will Minister Bowen attend the House of Representatives on every sitting day to take questions from the opposition about a whole range of matters—predominantly why electricity prices are still rising in our country? The second question is: what Australian taxpayer resources and which officials from which departments will be used to support the minister for energy, Chris Bowen, in his new role as the PON?

The third question is: will the minister for energy, Chris Bowen, excuse himself from cabinet deliberations on issues where there's a clear conflict between Australia's national interest and the work that he does to negotiate for COP31, where the interests of other nations might be ahead of our own national interest? The fourth question is: when the minister for energy, Chris Bowen, the member for McMahon, is travelling around the world doing his President of Negotiations work—remember that Istanbul, in Turkiye, is 15,000 kilometres away from Canberra and that it takes 24 hours to fly from Canberra to Istanbul—who will look after the interests of the citizens of McMahon? Those 120,000 voters deserve to be represented by a full-time member of the House of Representatives.

Those are the four primary questions that Prime Minister Albanese might like to think about and might like to turn up to the House of Representatives tomorrow and Thursday with clear answers to. If he cannot provide clear answers to those four questions, then Chris Bowen, the member for McMahon, is the wrong choice. Despite what Chris Bowen, the minister for energy, has said, it is totally incompatible for him to be the minister for energy at a time when electricity prices are rising, when reliability is falling and when our own emissions reduction experience in this country under his watch is flatlining and to also take on the role of President of Negotiations.

You might ask: why is this happening now? I've got an answer to that question. It just so happens that it coincides with this month's release of the Australian Energy Council's report on the future of electricity prices in this country, on the future of energy reliability and on the future of emissions reductions. It's a very, very bad and gloomy report, and it marks the minister for energy down. This is not the time to be rewarding Chris Bowen. (Time expired)